Biden’s strategy from here

A campaign memo

Joe Biden at his campaign kick-off rally. By Michael Stokes. Wikipedia.

David Axelrod and David Plouffe wrote an interesting article in today’s New York Times making suggestions regarding what tactics Biden should employ to help him campaign in this unprecedented crisis. The article is certainly worth a read. Axelrod and Plouffe are experienced and successful political operatives who are best known for helping a certain junior Senator from Illinois reach the White House.

Reading the article as well as other recent blog posts has given me pause, however. All too often, we get focused on the trees to ignore the forest. It’s too easy to consider the micro level when the macro level is so hard to analyze. That’s the situation we find ourselves in right now.

Biden should respond to negative attacks and he should be working on improving his digital media presence. Those are tactics, however. Campaigns are won with strategy, and this period between the time when he earned the nomination until the beginning of the general election campaign after the conventions is a period for developing a strategy that will help take him to victory in November.

Strategy is actually what I study. I have a PhD in management strategy, and much of my research looks at the relationship between government and business. Despite such credentials, however, I have made some shockingly bad…